Friday, December 21, 2007

Below are a few of the comments Garth Snow had to say about Don Lucia, The Gophers Hockey Program and Kyle Okposo. All of the comments where taken from an article in todays Star Tribune.

New York Islanders General Manager Garth Snow on Thursday criticized Don Lucia's coaching, saying that was the reason sophomore Kyle Okposo is leaving the Gophers hockey program and negotiating a contract with the Islanders."Quite frankly, we weren't happy with the program there," Snow said in a telephone interview. "They have a responsibility to coach, to make Kyle a better player, and they were not doing that."

Asked for specifics, Snow said, "[Okposo] just wasn't getting better -- bottom line. And to me, that's the frustrating part. We entrusted the coach there to turn him into a better hockey player, and it wasn't happening. We feel more comfortable in him developing right under our watch."

Minnesota athletic director Joel Maturi, when told of Snow's comments, was dumbfounded."He must feel that somebody's angry," Maturi said. "And I can understand why; you took a kid from a team in the midst of the year and he's probably trying to justify it. And that's his right."It's my understanding they now have a roster spot for [Okposo] and therefore our coaching is bad. It doesn't make any sense to me."

Still, Snow didn't feel the Gophers were a right fit for Okposo."It's well-known in hockey circles that the situation for college players is to develop and get better," Snow said. "And quite frankly, it's a big responsibility for a college coach -- a program -- to handle these kids."Whether it was Kyle or another player, until things change in that program we'd probably make the same decision. There should be a coach there that looks in the mirror."

He was asked if he thought it was OK for a player to leave midway through a college season."I don't think we'd be at this point if he was being coached properly," Snow said.

Snow then responded "he'll get better coaching" when asked what Okposo would get in the Islanders system.

Basically my thoughts on all of this are as follows. Garth Snow is a classless idiot. What is actually taking place is the NHL and Islanders are taking a ton of heat for plucking Okposo off his team in the middle of the season. Garth Snow is now trying to justify that move by blaming it on Lucia. How is Okposo going to receive better coaching from the coaches in New York. Name the last player that New York developed into a star??? Thats right, you can't.

Although I sometimes question Lucia you can't argue what he has done as a college coach. 2 national champions, 1 runner-up, 500+ coaching victories, 4 or 5 WCHA titles and countless all-americans. Most of those numbers where also accomplished at Colorado College and Alaska Fairbanks. Both of those programs where Ruddy Ducks (bottom feeders) before he arrived on campus. All of that sounds like a guy who can't coach. To put this in terms so WWWWWW can understand it, this is like calling Mike Krzyzewski a bad coach because Duke players aren't good pro's. Lucia is a hell of a college hockey coach and deserves better then being called out by a GM who runs a team with all the money in the world into last place.

Since when is a college hockey coaches priority to develop players for the NHL??? I thought his job was to win college games and titles??? D. Blais was 100% wrong in his previous post. A player has to be able to defend if he is going to play in todays NHL. Your arguement about Vanek was also way off. Vaneks defending was over exagerated by Sioux fans with inferiority complexes. Saying Vanek didn't defend was the only way they could justify Parise was as good of a player. Vanek is also on record as saying the hardest thing he had to learn in the NHL is playing both ends of the ice. Once he started playing with passion at both ends of the ice he lead the NHL in +/-. Okposo better not complain about having to play a defensive style because he will be skating 3rd line at best over the next couple of seasons.

Basically I think the islanders forced Okposo's hand. There are rumors floating around that they told him either leave now or don't plan oncoming for a couple years. We most likely will never now what really happened, but either way this whole things stinks like a grand forks sugar beet factory. Either way Garth Snow is a classless twat who's opinion matters as much as mine. Here's hoping Snow chokes on his christmas goose. F'ing twat!

11 comments:

Hockey's Hat Guy - Where does one even begin with a brainless and careless post like that?

Yes, Snow is a classless idiot and what Okposo did is equally classless. A bright red warning sign should have been flashing for Okposo at the first hint of a threat from the Isles. He should have told them they can start looking to trade his rights because he would never play for a team that would put one of their players/prospects in that type of situation.

However, in Snow's defense, his first priority is to the Islanders, not the Gophers. If the Isles feel that one of their players isn't developing the way he should or is even regressing, they sure as hell should get him out. It is not as if what Snow said was breaking new ground here. Having prospects in the American collegiate system has always been frowned upon by the majority of NHL teams. By the way Snow doesn't have all the money in the world, the NHL has a salary cap.

Nobody is denying that Lucia and Krzyzewski are great coaches. They're hall of fame coaches. I highly doubt that anybody would deny that they are both "system" coaches as well, and that their systems are not conducive to producing great professional players. There is no doubt that a collegiate coach's first responsibility is to win games. However, they also have the responsibility to help their stars get their games ready for the NHL. If Lucia wants to continue to sign 1st round NHL talent he may want to work on helping said players get there games ready for the NHL or face the fact that NHL teams will continue to pull their players out of his system early, or worse yet, they may stop coming all together.

I wanted to thank you for making my Vanek argument for me. "The hardest to thing he had to learn in the NHL is playing both ends of the ice." That's probably because HE NEVER HAD TO PLAY DEFENSE in college.

I would also like to point out that Vanek's +47 did not come from his new found "passion." It came from the fact that he played on the team that was tied for the best record in the NHL, the team with the most goals, the team with the 2nd highest goal differential, and it probably helped skating with the likes of D. Briere (10th in the NHL in points) and C. Drury every night. Mr. Passion must be battling depression this season because he is only +6 and is on pace for a huge +15 this season, a -32 difference. Let's face it +,- is very dependent on how well your team plays, not the individual. It's not all that different from Runs scored and RBI in baseball.

P.S. I don't look for grammatical/spelling errors, but when they're staring you in the face post after post, it becomes hard to not make a comment. I find it funny and I think W does as well, so I will continue.

You ever see a real long post and just skip over it because you know the person who typed it is a blow hard and just wasted 1 hour of their life typing a novel the rest of world is just going to scroll over? Thats what I just did!

A blow hard would not be someone who occasionally posts a long message. Rather, someone that feels his opinion on a subject is so intelligent or funny that he begs and pleads with W to be a regular contributor to this blog. As a longtime/religious reader of DWG, let me just say, you are only funny in the sophomoric sense of the word, and you are rarely intelligent. And I'm only being kind because it's Christmas.

Anonymous, 12:24 AM on Christmas Eve??? That is the definition of Rock Bottom Baby!

Deano- If your last post was pointed at me you are way off base. If I ever post at 12:30 AM, let alone of Christmas Eve, You can drive to my house and slit my wrist for me. Feel free to apologize whenever you see fit.

1st, Yes the NHL has a salary cap, but like the NFL, large market teams have more money to pay bonuses and other sources of income to players. That is why teams like the NY's always have the highest payrolls.

Thank you for making my Okposo argument. Vanek never had to played two way hockey in college, Okposo has. So obviously Okposo is being developed into and NHL style player. Correct? If anyone should be unhappy it is Vanek, yet he comes back and trains at the U each summer.

Also, Playing on high scoring and winning teams helps your +/- some, but not as much as you think. The top three scorers in the league last year had +/- of 10, 24 and 2. All played on very good teams and high scoring lines. Vanek didn't skate with the Drury line last year he was being slowed down with players like Drew Stafford.

Lets leave it at Okposo is a selfish tit and save readers from us bickering over how to develop players.

D.Blaise has anybody ever been more jealous of another person? Snake was invited to blog after his insightful hockey comments sparked 20+ comment debates. Plus he was doing it by discussing hockey, which 8 out of the 9 readers of DWG could give two shits about.

Maybe WWWW will invite you to blog about what its like to be an angry little troll. We will all keep our fingers crossed for you.

+/- has every thing to do with how good your team is. If you are a high scoring forward on a good team, you will have a high +/-. There were 6 teams in the NHL last season with a goal differential of +50. If you rank forwards in +/- last season, you will see that 9 of the top 10 come from the one of the aforementioned teams. And 3 of them come from Ottawa (+67) and 3 from Buffalo (+66), the two teams with the largest goal differentials.

If you need more proof, I will show you by using points, +/-, and their team's goal differential of the three players you wrote of earlier and the 4th highest scorer.

It would be a direct violation of the NHL's CBA to pay a player any "other source of income." The CBA is also very stringent on who it pays bonuses out to and they certainly don't include star players. I didn't find any info on this, but I think bonuses actually count against a team's cap.

You can't argue that it's not Lucia's job to prep Okposo for the NHL one minute and then tell us he was preparing him in the next. (You know exactly what I mean, so don't try to manipulate that last line.) He was hurting his development by playing him out of position, not by forcing him to play defense.

P.S. Nice Don Shelby line, the one about Vanek coming back to "The U" every summer. How Minnesotan of you.

P.P.S. Anonymous, is it possible for anyone other than Snake to be insightful about hockey? Or is this just more of my jealousy coming through? Maybe I should just be a coattail riding, mindless lemming, like you.